God’s Plan: Redemption

God’s Plan: Redemption

Eventually we all find ourselves staring into the face of truth. The Bible says that man’s soul is “full of troubles” (Psalm 88:3), filled with bitterness, grief, pain, and guilt.

Adam and Eve paid a price for their disobedience. They were driven out of the Paradise of God, His very presence, into the world they had chosen — a world where God’s enemy, Satan, “works in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2).

But that is not the whole story. Genesis portrays not only the beginning of the human race, but the start of God’s redemptive work in history. The salvation of the human race was put in place at the very beginning. Because God so loved His creation He initiated a way to make amends for man’s sin. This is the greatest search-and-rescue mission ever carried out — redemption of those made in God’s image.

In the greatest story ever told we see this remarkable hope.

As through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men… For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous. — Romans 5:18-19

The love and mercy that overflowed from the heart of God would someday flow in the crimson blood of His Son. From the heart of God to the cross of Christ, redemption came into view. God was not willing to turn His back on the human race. His love was too deep, His mercy too wide. He longed to recover, redeem, and bring us back to Himself.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. — John 3:16

This is what God did for us. God took Heaven’s best — the Lord Jesus Christ — to redeem earth’s worst.

The Son of God died on a cross, an instrument of Roman torture made for the vilest offenders.